Childhood adversity and anxiety have been associated with increased risk for internalizing disorders later in life and with a range of brain structural abnormalities. However, few studies have examined the link between harsh parenting practices and brain anatomy, outside of severe maltreatment or psychopathology. Moreover, to our knowledge, there has been no research on parenting and subclinical anxiety symptoms which remain persistent over time during childhood (i.e., between 2.5 and 9 years old). Here, we examined data in 94 youth, divided into four cells based on their levels of coercive parenting (high / low) and of anxiety (high / low) between 2.5 and 9 years old. Anatomical images were analyzed using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and FreeSurfer. Smaller gray matter volumes in the prefrontal cortex regions and in the amygdala were observed in youth with high versus low levels of harsh parenting over time. In addition, we observed significant interaction effects between parenting practices and subclinical anxiety symptoms in rostral anterior cingulate cortical thickness and in amygdala volume. These youth should be followed further in time to identify which youth will or will not go on to develop an anxiety disorder, and to understand factors associated with the development of sustained anxiety psychopathology.

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) are involved in conflict detection and conflict resolution, respectively. Here, we investigate how lifelong bilingualism induces neuroplasticity to these structures by employing a novel analysis of behavioural performance. We correlated grey matter volume (GMV) in seniors reported by Abutalebi et al. (2015) with behavioral Flanker task performance fitted using the diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978). As predicted, we observed significant correlations between GMV in the DLPFC and Flanker performance. However, for monolinguals the non-decision time parameter was significantly correlated with GMV in the left DLPFC, whereas for bilinguals the correlation was significant in the right DLPFC. We also found a significant correlation between age and GMV in left DLPFC and the non-decision time parameter for the conflict effect for monolinguals only.

We submit that this is due to cumulative demands on cognitive control over a lifetime of bilingual language processing.

Objectives: Executive dysfunction is a common feature in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, there is a lack of brief validated instruments for executive dysfunction in PD. Methods: The aim of the present study was to assess the relation of Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) scores to age and education, to verify the utility of FAB in the evaluation of executive dysfunction in PD and to differentiate between controls (n=41), PD patients with normal cognition (PD-NC; n=41; Hoehn and Yahr stages 2–3) and PD with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI; n=32; Hoehn and Yahr stages 2–3). In addition, we studied the relation between voxel-based morphometric (VBM) data and FAB results in PD. Results: We found that FAB scores are significantly related to age and education. The FAB has shown discriminative validity for the differentiation of PD-MCI from PD-NC and controls (area under the curve >.80). Also, the VBM analysis revealed lower FAB scores are specifically related to lower gray matter density in the right ventromedial prefrontal areas and precuneus. Conclusions: The FAB can be recommended as a valid instrument for PD-MCI Level I screening. FAB is sensitive to frontal lobe involvement in PD as reflected by lower gray matter density in prefrontal areas. (JINS, 2017, 23, 675–684)

The knowledge about personality traits in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is still limited. In particular, disgust proneness has not been investigated as well as its neuronal correlates. Although several morphometric studies demonstrated that PD is associated with gray matter volume (GMV) reduction in olfactory and gustatory regions involved in disgust processing, a possible correlation with disgust proneness has not been investigated. We conducted a voxel-based morphometry analysis to compare GMV between 16 cognitively normal male PD patients with mild to moderate symptoms and 24 matched control subjects. All participants had answered questionnaires for the assessment of disgust proneness, trait anger and trait anxiety. We correlated questionnaire scores with GMV in both groups. The clinical group reported selectively reduced disgust proneness toward olfactory stimuli associated with spoilage. Moreover, they showed GMV reduction in the central olfactory system [orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and piriform cortex]. Disgust items referring to olfactory processing were positively correlated with OFC volume in PD patients. Our data suggest an association between PD-associated neurodegeneration and olfactory related facets of the personality trait disgust proneness. (JINS, 2015, 21, 314–317)

Over the past decade, brain imaging has helped to better define eating disorder–related brain circuitry. Brain research on gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) volumes had been inconsistent, possibly due to the effects of acute starvation, exercise, medication, and comorbidity, but newer studies have controlled for such effects. Those studies suggest larger left medial orbitofrontal gyrus rectus volume in ill adult and adolescent anorexia nervosa after recovery from anorexia nervosa, and in adult bulimia nervosa. The orbitofrontal cortex is important in terminating food intake, and altered function could contribute to self-starvation. The right insula, which processes taste but also interoception, was enlarged in ill adult and adolescent anorexia nervosa, as well as adults recovered from the illness. The fixed perception of being fat in anorexia nervosa could be related to altered insula function. A few studies investigated WM integrity, with the most consistent finding of reduced fornix integrity in anorexia and bulimia nervosa—a limbic pathway that is important in emotion but also food intake regulation. Functional brain imaging using basic sweet taste stimuli in eating disorders during the ill state or after recovery implicated repeatedly reward pathways, including insula and striatum. Brain imaging that targeted dopamine-related brain activity using taste-reward conditioning tasks suggested that this circuitry is hypersensitive in anorexia nervosa, but hyporesponsive in bulimia nervosa and obesity. Those results are in line with basic research and suggest adaptive reward system changes in the human brain in response to extremes of food intake—changes that could interfere with normalization of eating behavior.

Background: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a common form of dementia characterized by visual hallucinations, cognitive fluctuation and parkinsonism. We aimed to compare the patterns of gray matter atrophy in DLB with those in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and normal aging, and to investigate the relationship between atrophy and cognitive measures.

Methods: We used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to investigate gray matter (GM) loss in DLB (n = 35; mean age = 78.4; MMSE = 20.3), AD (n = 36; mean age = 78.3; MMSE = 19.5) and similar aged controls (n = 35; mean age = 76.7; MMSE = 29.1). T1 weighted MRI scans were acquired at 3 Tesla from all subjects and analyzed using VBM-DARTEL in SPM8. Cognitive function was assessed using the Cambridge Cognitive Examination (CAMCOG).

Results: We found reduced gray matter in temporal, parietal, occipital, and subcortical structures in DLB when compared to normal controls. The degree of atrophy was less than that observed in AD. There was significantly more medial temporal lobe atrophy in the AD group when compared with DLB. We did not find a correlation between total CAMCOG score and atrophy, but the CAMCOG memory subscale score correlated with temporal lobe atrophy in both the DLB and combined DLB/AD group.

Conclusions: DLB is associated with less gray matter atrophy and relative preservation of the medial temporal lobe when compared to AD. Degree of medial temporal atrophy may be a useful imaging biomarker and our results provide support for its inclusion in the revised consensus criteria for DLB.